The Bible and 'global warming'

Joseph Farah is founder, editor and chief executive officer of WND. He is the author or co-author of 13 books that have sold more than 5 million copies, including his latest, "The Restitution of All Things: Israel, Christians, and the End of the Age." Before launching WND as the first independent online news outlet in 1997, he served as editor in chief of major market dailies including the legendary Sacramento Union.

I can certainly understand why neo-pagans like Al Gore believe, despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, man-made, catastrophic global warming is the gravest threat to the planet.

What I can’t understand is why people who claim to believe in the Bible as the inerrant, inspired Word of God do so.

Even more difficult to comprehend is why some evangelical Christians are caught up in the notion that government and international action are the proper methods to fight this phantom threat.

First of all, in Genesis 8:22, we’re told of a promise by God never to use global floodwaters again as a means of destroying life on Earth. In that promise, the Bible explicitly states: “While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”

In other words, no more cataclysmic floods – the result Al Gore promises in the near future as a consequence of global warming. Just as importantly, there is another promise there that cold and heat shall not cease.

It is so presumptuous and haughty of believers and non-believers alike to think man is in control of the destiny of the planet God created for us.

If it were so, would he not have warned us? With all of the prophecies in the Bible, should we not expect to be told that such matters are actually in our hands? Why would we be told exactly the opposite throughout scripture?

It’s not that the Bible tells us there are no consequences for our actions on the planet. In fact, it quite explicitly does. But it is not the production of carbon dioxide that God finds offensive. It is the commission of sin. Nowhere in the Bible does God ever suggest that producing CO2 is sinful.

Keep in mind, it is not a pollutant. It is a naturally occurring gas – just like oxygen. God created CO2, not man. And nature’s God still produces a lot more of it than does man.

In Isaiah 49, in a passage evangelicals believe represent the words of Jesus Himself, there is another promise – that those who follow Him would never perish from the heat of the sun.

“They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor the sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them,” it says in Isaiah 49:10.

If cataclysmic global warming represented a real threat to believers, would God have made such a promise through Isaiah?

That is not to say heat will never be used as a means of judgment. In fact, it will be according to the Bible.

We are told in Revelation 16:9: “And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him glory.”

What this means is that scorching heat will be used as a judgment against non-believers, and, most importantly, that God and God alone has the power over such calamities.

Yes, there will come a time when the Earth is destroyed – and intense heat will be the mechanism God employs. But we are not talking about a rise of a few degrees over centuries. We’re talking about heat so severe it melts the very elements that comprise the Earth.

That comes in a day that sounds very much like the time in which we live. It is described in 2 Peter 3:

3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,

4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.

5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness,

12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat?

13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.

Are today’s evangelicals who agree with the worldly that the greatest threat to mankind is represented in catastrophic, man-made global warming without spot and blameless?

It is sheer folly and ego for man to believe he controls the destiny of God’s creation. But it is even more disgraceful when those who claim to believe His Word preach a false gospel of global warming that directly contradicts the entire body of scripture.